Black Fragility As Black Strength?

Substack seems to be a refuge or safe space for marginalized liberals--liberals who have found themselves behind the liberal curve, which has taken an ever more Leftward turn. John McWhorter, an African American linguistics professor, finds himself in that position. Having previously been something of a liberal darling--a coddled black academic sought after by white liberal publications--he's been marginalized to Substack. He's still saying pretty much the same things, but now for a somewhat different audience, in the same way that Glenn Greenwald does--becoming a regular on Tucker Carlson's show. More power to them, although I wish they'd have learned a bit more about their liberal ideas from what has happened.

Anyway, he has a piece today sniping, as has become usual for him, at the mainstream CRT people, who have become the Left's mainstream for commenting on all matters racial. He has worthwhile things to say, even if his audience isn't what it used to be:

BLACK FRAGILITY AS BLACK STRENGTH? TRY THESE BOOKS INSTEAD.

So, he's gonna recommend books on race to read, rather than the stock CRT oriented books that are all the rage on the Left. Fine, but I won't bother going there--if you're looking for books to read about race, follow the link. Instead, here's his intro, which is blessedly common sensical:

Fauci Is Squirming

Polling is showing that Fauci is struggling with his credibility. The fact that, even on left wing shows where he's most likely to appear and be treated like royalty or a saint, he's being asked about the issues that Rand Paul has raised. The left media has likely been emboldened to question Fauci by exposés in New York magazine and most recently by liberal science journalist Nicholas Wade, as well as by liberal icons like pollster Nate Silver who has stated that Fauci has "gaslighted" the public.

Now I see Fauci slipping and letting the cat out of the bag to Politifact--as quoted by TGP:

UPDATED: 'Moderate' Left Already Alarmed

You've probably noticed. Just a few days into the new regime and voices on the 'moderate' Left are already sounding alarmed. They think the regime should be making more of an effort to fool more of the people, rather than openly making a hard left turn. They're afraid We The People are noticing, and I think they're right about that. How long they could fool people in the current climate was always a dubious proposition.

Among the other signs of alarm and unrest, I noticed this seemingly minor indicator--except, of course, that it's really not:

Moratorium order shocks NM oil industry

 

Shocks--as in, We didn't think they'd really do it:

The federal government’s 60-day suspension of new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits on public lands sent shockwaves through the industry in New Mexico and divided industry experts over potential impacts.

The article is long and provides various viewpoints, all the ins and outs, but here's the short version. New Mexico ranks among the very poorest states in the country. The revenue and jobs that the oil industry provides is one of the view bright spots in the state's economy. By some estimates, according to one view cited in the article, if the suspension is made permanent as promised, it could cost the state 62,000 jobs and billions in revenue.

People associated with the energy industry all around the country have sat up and taken notice--not just the executives, but the 'little people' too. They know this is a harbinger of things to come.

UPDATE: Importantly, the jobs that will be lost--not just in the energy sector but across the economy as the new regime's Executive Orders start to bite--will be overwhelmingly union jobs. And that will probably portend a worsening split between leftist union management and the rank and file. Read about this here: “Insulting”- Labor Unions That Endorsed Biden Now Lashing Out At Him. 

Why Am I Not Surprised?

Shaun King--the formerly African-American (or should I say Black?) Lefty activist and fundraiser--is calling for the destruction of all images of Jesus that portray him as "white." Also slated for destruction would be all images of Jesus' "European" mother.

Shaun King 

@shaunking 

Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down.  

They are a form of white supremacy.  

Always have been.  

In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? 

EGYPT! 

Not Denmark. 

Tear them down.

Shaun King 

@shaunking 

Yes.  

All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down.  

They are a gross form white supremacy.  

Created as tools of oppression.  

Racist propaganda.  

They should all come down. 

12:07 PM - Jun 22, 2020

Just this morning I was wondering what new measures would be needed to placate the Leftist mobs once all statues of, for example, Teddy Roosevelt have been removed from public--or even not so public--view. This new iconoclasm solves that problem. Removing all images of Jesus and his European mother should keep the mobs busy for many years.

Beyond those practical considerations, though, this is a logical follow-on to Gorsuch and Robert's deconstruction of human nature, and the supine response from organized "Christianity."

The Flaws In FISA Revisited

Back in July, 2018, I wrote about What The Carter Page Case Tells Us About The Flaws In FISA. While researching that topic I came across an article by Judge Robert Bork in which he criticized the proposed FISA law--Bork was writing in March, 1978, before the law was actually enacted. Among other incisive comments by Bork was the observation that FISA would amount to a stay out of jail card for government bureaucrats--investigators and prosecutors. Here's the last part of my blog, in which I quote Bork in part--do yourself a favor and follow the link to his full article:

--------------------------

ADDENDUM: Since writing the above, on Monday, I've become aware that Judge Robert Bork--way back in March, 1978--wrote an article for the WSJ in which he expressed serious reservations about the very nature of the court envisioned by FISA, which was then being pushed through Congress: 'Reforming' Foreign Intelligence. Bork's views have been referenced twice by William McGurn in the WSJ, most recently on 7/23/18, Abolish the FISA Court, and previously on 3/6/17, Robert Bork and the FISA Follies. Here is a sampling of Bork's views on the proposed FISC, which appear in light of developments to have been quite prescient. The entire article is well worth the read:

Re the role of FISC judges:

"The job is managerial, not judicial, and the two should not be mixed."

"judges cannot become adequately informed about intelligence to make the sophisticated judgments required."

"The element of judicial secrecy is particularly troubling. Because it reverses our entire tradition, it is difficult to think of secret decisions as 'law' ... it would set apart a group of judges who must operate largely in the dark and create rules known only to themselves. ... it debases an important idea to term it the rule of law ..."

“the law would almost certainly increase unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information simply by greatly widening the circle of people with access to it.”

“When an attorney general must decide for himself, without shield of a warrant, whether to authorize surveillance, and must accept the consequences if things go wrong, there is likely to be more care taken. The statute, however, has the effect of immunizing everyone, and sooner or later that fact will be taken advantage of.”

UPDATED: Leninthink And Impeachment

The other day I did a brief post excerpted from Daniel Greenfield's fine article:

The Disturbing Reason Why the Dems Really Want to Impeach Trump

In the article Greenfield seeks to capture what we could call the animating spirit behind the Leftist drive for impeachment. He finds that spirit in the Left's Will to Power, to dominate, humiliate, and destroy all opposition to their power. Greenfield poses the question, what does the Left really want:

Post-gender bathrooms, banning cows, and paying reparations to drug dealers are just random policies. They’re not the endgame.

His answer (extensively edited) captures that spirit perfectly:

Impeachment is not just meant to be a trial of President Trump, but of the voters who chose him.  

But the real appeal of impeachment is more emotional than strategic.  

"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship," O'Brien tells the hapless Winston Smith in the novel 1984. "The object of power is power." 

Marxist regimes love show trials because they allow them to destroy and humiliate their enemies. 

"How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?" O'Brien asks.
"By making him suffer," Winston replies. 

The Mueller investigation enraptured lefties with its spectacle of police state tactics, night raids, prolonged interrogations, eavesdropping, and then finally trials that bankrupted their opponents. 

Nothing else, not even winning in 2020, excites the Left as much as the prospect of more show trials. 

Impeaching Trump isn’t about him. It’s a Rorschach test that reveals the ugly inkblot of the leftist soul. Its real purpose is for an ugly totalitarian movement to live out its fantasy of casting aside the vestiges of democracy, divesting itself of the illusions of representative government and holding a show trial. 

Their vision of utopia isn’t equality or progress, it’s trial after trial, an endless series of proceedings against Trump and you and me. The nightmares of the French Revolution, the Soviet Union, Communist China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia weren’t accidental misfires: they’re the essential truth of what the Left is.

Terror is in the political DNA of every radical movement. And the arc of the Left is always radical. 

“Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever,” 1984’s O’Brien rhapsodizes. 

Impeachment is a feverish effort by the Left to live out this evil fantasy. It’s one of a million show trials that the radicals who are taking over the Democrats envision, not just for Trump, but for America.

But now I urge you to consider that in the context of Leninthink. This is an article that was sent to me by an emailer. The author, Gary Saul Morson, is a professor at Northwestern University, a self confessed "pink diaper baby" and recovering Marxist-Leninist. Morson finds in Lenin the roots of the modern Left's Will to Power--whether they've ever read Lenin (doubtful) or not. I ask you to compare Greenfield's description of the spirit that animates the Left and consider--Is there truly any difference between the Left in America and Leninthink. Consider the events of the past decade, the domination of public life by division and hatred, all ginned up by the Left in order to gain ... Justice? No, Power. Just like man and woman, words for the Left mean only what they want them to mean. And that changes depending on the needs of Power.

It's a long article, but I found it an absorbing read. Here's the concluding paragraph:

When I detect Leninist ways of thinking today, people respond: surely you don’t think all those social justice warriors are Leninists! Of course not. The whole point of Leninism is that only a few people must understand what is going on. That was the key insight of his tract What Is to Be Done? When Leninism is significant, there will always be a spectrum going from those who really understand, to those who just practice the appropriate responses, to those who are entirely innocent. The real questions are: Is there such a spectrum now, and how do we locate people on it? And if there is such a spectrum, what do we do about it?

And with that context in mind there's Angelo Codevilla's sobering article: Igniting Civil War. Never?

UPDATE: The article I'm about to link is quite lengthy and somewhat diffuse. The author is obviously suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, however his concerns are very much on point with Greenfield:

AMERICA’S NEW SEX BUREAUCRACY
Meme Wars: How campus Title IX courts’ guilty-until-proven-innocent subversion of due process is a harbinger of a dangerous wider shift in liberalism 

By Wesley Yang
September 24, 2019

Here are two concluding paragraphs:

How the Harvard Law School faculty came to be seen as out on a perilous limb for defending “the most basic principles we teach” is a much larger part of the submerged history of our time than is generally understood. It is a story with which the rise of Donald Trump is fatally intertwined, but it is in fact a story that takes precedence—both temporal and logical—over the anarchic and pathological rise of the demagogue occupying the White House. 

The story, I will argue in this and subsequent columns, is about the rise and bid for hegemony of a new ideology. This ideology is a successor to liberalism. It brandishes terms that superficially resemble normative liberalism—terms like diversity and inclusion—but in fact seeks to supplant it. This new regime, in which administrative power has been fashioned into a blunt instrument of deterrence, marks off a crucial distinction—between the liberal rule of law, and the punitive system of surveillance rooted in identity politics known as “social justice.”

He wants us to believe that the rise of this "new" ideology is not to be blamed on liberalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The new ideology is simply following out the principles that are inherent in liberalism.

Briefly Noted: Why the Dems Really Want to Impeach Trump

This is a short selection from Daniel Greenfield's The Disturbing Reason Why the Dems Really Want to Impeach Trump. It's interesting to see how this plays into the rhetoric that Leftists let slip regarding the voters: Deplorables, Bitter Clingers, etc. The show trial of impeachment would be a symbolic delegitimation not only of Trump but of his voters and of the process that allowed his election:

Lefties have made it very clear that they would rather, practically or symbolically, reverse the results of the 2016 election than focus on winning in 2020 because of the larger principle at stake. The second part of the principle appears in every media piece pushing impeachment. It hinges on President Trump’s alleged unfitness for office. The first part of the principle is the unfitness of the voters to choose leaders. 

Elections are a humiliating process that force lefties to lie to voters, hide their agendas, and appeal to the people they despise to be allowed to rule them. Even when they win, a sour taste lingers afterward.

The Left desperately wants impeachment proceedings because it wants to exercise direct power.

People wonder what the Left really wants? Post-gender bathrooms, banning cows, and paying reparations to drug dealers are just random policies. They’re not the endgame. 

Unless the Democrats take the Senate, impeachment would be a meaningless show trial. But Marxist regimes love show trials of political opponents. The Marxist element in the House desperately wants a show trial of President Trump because such a proceeding is an explicit rejection of our political system. 

The push to impeach President Trump did not begin organically with a crime allegedly committed in office, but began before he even took office and, in some elements of the media, before he even won. The premise of impeachment has always been an inherent unfitness. The actual basis for impeachment has always been a corollary to that claim of an inherent unfitness that preceded even the election. 

Inherent unfitness expresses the idea that the voters never had any right to elect President Trump.

Impeachment is not just meant to be a trial of President Trump, but of the voters who chose him. Its outcome, whatever the composition of the Senate, is meant to be an argument for remaking the system of elections, whether by abolishing the Electoral College or tampering with the judiciary, that would take the power further out of the hands of the voters and concentrate them with the right sorts of people.